Title

Author

Date of Award

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Computer Science - (M.S.)

Department

Computer and Information Science

First Advisor

Franz J. Kurfess

Second Advisor

Reggie J. Caudill

Third Advisor

Qian Hing Lue

Abstract

Multi-lifecycle Assessment (MLCA) systematically considers and quantifies the consumption of resources and the environmental impact associated with a product or process. Design challenges posed by a multi-lifecycle strategy are significantly more complex than traditional product design. The designer must look forward in time to maximize the product's end-of-life yield of assemblies, parts and materials while looking backward to the world of existing products for feedstock sources for the current design. As MLCA and DEE share some common data items, such as, part geometry, material and manufacturing process, it is advantageous to integrate the database for MLCA and DEE. The integration of CAD/DEE and MLCA database will provide not only to designers but also for dernanufacturer and MLCA analyst to play an active role in achieving the vision of sustainability.

The user of MLCA software has to provide a significant amount of information manually about a product for which the environmental burdens are being analyzed, which is an error prone activity. To avoid the manual work and associative problems, a MLCA-CAD interface has been developed to progranmtatically populate the MLCA database by using the Bill of Material (BOM) information in the CAD software. This MLCA-CAD interface provides a flow of information from design software (DEE/CAD) to MLCA software.